Abstract

This paper focuses on the experience of women returnees in rural-urban migration in contemporary China. Based on in-depth interviews with women migrants, returnees, their family members, friends and fellow villagers in both sending and receiving areas, the research investigates the return and remigration decision-making of rural women, their life as returnees, their identity shaping and the negotiation of the gender relations in the household. The author argues that the current government policies addressing 'the problem of rural migrant returnees' are inadequate in aiding women returnees in the villages to resettle as they fail to acknowledge the needs of rural women returnees. As a result, many women returnees will have to re-migrate again to the cities. As in their first migration, their seemingly free choice of remigration is a choice out of necessity. The government needs to devise policies and programmes that are more gender-sensitive to help women migrant returnees in their settlement and remigration.